Brexit: Britain voted to leave the European Union. Like Trump’s victory, it took the press by surprise and seemed partly driven by White nationalism.

War: The Syrian Civil War remains the most violent conflict in the world, though Iraq and Afghanistan are not far behind. Russia and its allies took back Aleppo (pictured above), Syria’s second city. Meanwhile the US and its allies fought to take back Mosul, Iraq’s second city.

Water: In the US, safe water became an issue in Flintand Standing Rock. Not because of some kind of natural disaster or aging pipes, but because state governments favour the interests of banks and the fossil fuel industry over the health of people of colour.

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This is the same CIA that the U.S. governemt relied on to justifybthe Iraq war. Their bad intelligence, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, led to a needless war and the political chaos we now have across the Arab world.

I follow Glenn Greenwald because he is a skeptic of both the left and right and I find his commentary largly rational and free of MSM or fake news bias.

The line separating what is true and what is propaganda overlaps between both fake news and the MSM.

I expect with a Trump presidency, Putin will have the green light to expand Russian influence abroad including military incursions. Similarly Isreal will be emboldened to continue settlements and Palestinians will see an escalation of violence against them.

As far as what Trump will do domestically the first year I think will be determined by how much he can get away with.

He has surrounded himself with people potentially comfortable with Federal intrusion into the lives of both people and business in his pursuit to “make America great again”. Will the House and Senate go along with his bully pulpit and cow to “populist” voters in their respective districts or will they resist the slide towards more facsim. We shall see.

I do think that presuming the popular vote determines Trump’s support is misleading. I think the racist, xenophobic undertow of the American public is far deeper and broader then “45.5%” of the vote.

I loved the black representation on television in 2016 OWN’s Queen Sugar to Netflix Luke Cage to FX’s Atlanta and HBO’s Insecure with Issa Rae made me happy so many Easter eggs. Even Thandie Newton and Jeffery Wright turned in great performances on HBO’s Westworld. Westworld was a great show. I cried that we lost two beloved characters on AMC’s Walking Dead Glenn and Abraham. The big screen has some great films coming out. Hidden Figures and Fences and Moonlight. The melanin was shing and beautiful on the big and small screen. That made me happy.

“I expect with a Trump presidency, Putin will have the green light to expand Russian influence abroad including military incursions.” Really, to what end? Russia’s intervention in Syria was based on the need to curb the Jihadists unleashed by the USA and its Arab Sheikh allies. Ukraine was the handiwork of the CIA that now cries foul because the Russians allegedly unmasked HRC for the two face liar she is.

“Trump had the support of White Evangelical Protestants, the alt-right, fake news, US cable news, Russian trolls and, according to the CIA, Russian hackers. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton took the Black and Latino vote for granted.”

There is simply no proof of support of Trump by Russian hackers or trolls. That is a conspiracy theory that has the benefit of being propped up by the Clinton campaign and the government without evidence. At least you could have said alleged. Fake news should also be placed in quotes because the post you reference brands some legitimate news sites as fake..

I like Rall’s cartoons. Except for his apelike depiction of Obama. He proves here that he is capable of drawing a dark skinned person who doesn’t look like a monkey. Even though this guy here I think is a tan white guy, he is actually closer to the skin color of Obama than …this:

Also in this one

Com’on! It’s change of seasons. They’re clothing should change too. Or maybe, by having them wear short sleeves in winter he is also making a statement abou global warming.

ive called him a punk an asshole a fraud a puppet a manchurian candidate evil the drone ranger a mass murderer the enemy of black people a psychopath and the worse president in history.
but never an ape.

I’m amazed at how well the CIA programming worked on you. they must have embedded subliminal messages in black tv shows. ‘love Obama. defend him from all slights real and imaginary.’ SNAP OUT OF IT! he’s history. you don’t have to defend him anymore.
How are all the other characters less ‘apelike’ than the Obama one?’
cant you see it? rall has toned it down a bit since being kicked off kos for his apelike obamas. but not much.http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/60001/large/185477_10150266680747858_2599142_n.jpg?1386080462

@Abagond
Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it. That’s the way propaganda works. Clinton’s made up story about Russian trolls and hackers, backed by Obama and the government without evidence, is reported here as fact. And it shouldn’t be. It is allegation and should thus be put in quotes. “Fake”. It is that thing that you disdain. It is conspiracy theory. It just has the benefit, thanks to Obama, of being official conspiracy theory. Like 911.

It glosses over a momentous event that should have changed how we think of MSM. It has lost its credibility. It can no longer be trusted. Take that propaganda and shove it. That’s what we ought to be saying.

@Abagond
“Trump had the support of White Evangelical Protestants, the alt-right, fake news, US cable news, Russian trolls and, according to the CIA, Russian hackers.”

I’m being a little picky here, but it’s important. The Russian hackers you singled out as ‘according to the CIA. Fine. Accurate. The rest you reported as independent fact. The Russian trolls, of which I presume you include me, is a complete fabrication. The fake news also alludes to some legitimate sources which are not fake. And also the sources making this claim against them have themselves been proved to be fake in what has to be the biggest journalism kerfuffle in modern history. You omit this important context. Said kerfuffle was one of the biggest stories of the year. That fact should have been mentioned in your review, IMO.

@Abagond
Aside from the issues themselves -fake news, Russian trolls- there is the assertion that these issues are used to support. That is, that these and the support of White Evangelical Protestants, the alt-right, and US cable news were the cause of Trump’s victory. It has been clear for sometime that the cause of Hillary’s defeat and the corollary Trump victory was leaked not hacked e-mails. No mention of that in the synopsis.

Also you make it seem like Trump’s support was great, when clearly Hillary’s was much greater. In fact that is the essence of the narrative that unfolded in the presidential election of 2016. Trump overcame overwhelming odds. That was what was so spectacular about his victory. I’ve never seen anything like it. The media was against him. The elites. His own party. Even Google was working against him. And still he won!

So your narrative of what happened politically in 2016 is skewed Hillary.

The people at the top of the hierarchy belive they could control the narrative and therefore the outcome of the election. Build Trump up and then tear him down to get Hillary elected. Trump figured out how to play the electoral collage and won. Even his team didn’t quite belive the internal polling they were getting out of the Rust States. A lot of people didn’t vote and third parties did very well.

The people who run this country, the media ect live in a bubble. The degrees of separation from where the poor and working class Blacks and whites are at compared to middle class and the educated is great. And Trump picked up white middle class and educated because of their underlying racism.

I expect Trump’s popularity to increase if the economy improves despite what the media says and does. Remember Regan’s popularity grew under Iran/contra. That was the beginning of the populace distrusting and hating the press.

This blog is about how the majority of white people are blind to their own racism ect. As I stated earlier it’s much easier to belive the majority of the country is racist and xenophobic and Trump fed and exploited that.

I found the Don Lemons and Rachel Maddow’s to be disrespectful of working class Americans. Their elitism doesn’t resonate with working class Democrats. You don’t talk down to potential voters.

“Also you make it seem like Trump’s support was great, when clearly Hillary’s was much greater.”

What are you talking about? I quoted the actual percentage of the popular vote they got to two decimal places. Not sure I can be any more clear than that.

“In fact that is the essence of the narrative that unfolded in the presidential election of 2016. Trump overcame overwhelming odds. That was what was so spectacular about his victory. I’ve never seen anything like it. The media was against him. The elites. His own party. Even Google was working against him. And still he won!”

Oh please. As if. The US is racist as fuck. Do not sugar-coat it.

I am not sure about Google, but the Republican Party, in the main, supported him. There was no widespread revolt as predicted, not even after the Hollywood Access tape. Not even among White Evangelical Protestants, who supposedly care so much about moral character.

And the media, far from being against him, gave him wall-to-wall coverage for at least 15 months. It was sickening. They gave him billions in free airtime, more than Hillary. And they treated him like a serious candidate, helping to legitimize him, big-time. Because CBS and the rest are greedy douchebags. Even when he started blacklisting news outlets, the others still played nice with him. They are as pathetic as your beloved RT. They ALL bend over. Do not fool yourself.

@Abagond
I skew truth. Countering your russophobia.
““Fake news should also be placed in quotes because the post you reference brands some legitimate news sites as fake.”
Such as? RT.
@MJB
Assange himself testifies that his source was a leak. Probably from within the DNC. That’s me saying that. Might have been the DNC personnel that was mysteriously murdered.

@Abagond
“, gave him wall-to-wall coverage for at least 15 months. ”
They were trashing him. The debates were even biased with moderators attacking Trump and feeding Hillary questions before hand. Com’on man. You’re not really going to double down on this distortion? Anybody can see for themselves that that is what happened. The elite of the GOP abandoned Trump for Hillary. Do I really need to dig up the articles?
“Do not fool yourself.”
I don’t intend to be fooled. Certainly not by what you written.

I do not believe it was out of racism, or out of love for Trump that the media gave him so much airtime. If it was for the support, they would not have made an news item of Trump saying “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” or Trump saying the elections were rigged. Or his blunt statement that Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK, according to some gossip magazine.

I might be wrong, but I think it is more because viewers are more willing (or at least seen as more willing) to watch an empty stage, where later on an orange-haired clown will perform a weird act, than a sixty-nine-year-old career politician talking about her plans and ambitions. And thus, if that empty stage sells more advertising money, then the networks will show us the empty stage.

Abagond likes to say things like that but his actions speak louder than words.

Abagond has written several articles in favour of her has advocated his readers vote for her, has attacked all his commenters who have done nothing but spoken truths about her, and has unfairly changed his rules to target them.

Here we are almost 2 months after the election, and he’s still up to his shenanigans. He needs to dry his tears and move on.

fake news is a meaningless though, for freedom of speech, deadly term. if virtually all news is fake save for “officially” sanctioned sources, then what we have is complete control of news by the corporate state, i.e. fascism. especially when those sanctioned sources themselves have so spectacularly proved to be fake. we should, whether right, left or independent, guard against that. that is totalitarianism. that’s why i’m being picky. a small but important point.

“Fake news” is a more virulent control label than “conspiracy theory” because it moves us one step closer to fascism as a nation. “Conspiracy theory” just programmed us as to what topics were off limits. “Fake news” takes our programming a step further, telling us which sites are approved. It inevitably leads to the shutting down, slow or fast, of unapproved sites. A closer walk with Big Brother.

Sadly, this Orwellian propaganda works perfectly since most people are already comfortable getting all their news from one or two sources, like abagond gets most of his news from Univision Communications, Inc.

And you know why they are so desperate to erect these new walls of thought containment? Why they will go to any lengths, even risk WWIII as a diversion. Well, the plan for war with Russia has been in the works for several years now, as insane as that sounds. But that’s what you get from insane leaders. Surrounding Russia with military bases. Nevertheless, they are rolling it out now, with diplomatic affronts, to divert attention from so-called Pizzagate, which arguably deserves mention as one of the defining events of 2016. It is ultimately intertwined with the ‘fake news’ story. Obama certainly wants to bury it, because he’s implicated in Pizzagate too, just as he is implicated in the Hillary email scandal. The best way to divert public attention is with a crisis. Hence all this ballyhoo (without evidence) of Russian influence on the election and in the process delegitimizing Donald Trump. Those are big diversions. And yet the so called Pizzagate crimes are so expansive in the people implicated it has the possibility of becoming an even bigger story in 2017. Well, unless there’s a war or something.

Fake news. A big cover up requires a big diversion. Also, it doesn’t hurt to stamp out alternative media that report on Pizzagate in the process. The alleged threat of Russian fakers gives the state license to do this. So I’m gonna say, it wouldn’t be 2016 without Pizzagate. We ended the year on that emphatic note.

When did MAD become insanity? It all started back in 2006. Put into practice during the Barack Obama administration.
“The U.S. government’s plan to conquer Russia is based upon a belief in, and the fundamental plan to establish, “Nuclear Primacy” against Russia — an American ability to win a nuclear war against, and so conquer, Russia.
This concept became respectable in U.S. academic and governmental policymaking circles when virtually simultaneously in 2006 a short-form and a long-form version of an article endorsing the concept, which the article’s two co-authors there named “nuclear primacy,” were published respectively in the world’s two most influential journals of international affairs, Foreign Affairs from the Council on Foreign Relations, and International Security from Harvard. (CFR got the more popular short version, titled “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy”, and Harvard got the more scholarly long version, which was titled “The End of MAD?”.)”https://off-guardian.org/2017/01/02/americas-secret-planned-conquest-of-russia/

Putin on how insane this is and how it is enabled by fake news, msm style.

“It’s only you “It’s only you [MSM] that tells these fables and you buy it and spread it to the citizens of your countries. Your people do not feel a sense of the impending danger, this is what worries me. How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? That is the problem. But they pretend like nothing’s going on…ah, I don’t even know how to get through to you people anymore,” Putin stated at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, 2016.

While you were sleeping, they came and took another portion of it away. While you were distracted by who said he said she Russia did it. And terrorist attacks around the world. They came and took another part of away. In fact, they used the bogus Russian threat as a means to accomplish this end. A sweeping act, done while nobody was looking. Another slick move on the Fascistic Obama chessboard. Check, America, check! Mate is imminent. Is it a coup?

““The designation [of US elections as critical infrastructure] allows for information to be withheld from the public when state, local and private partners meet to discuss election infrastructure security — potentially injecting secrecy into an election process that’s traditionally and expressly a transparent process. U.S. officials say such closed door conversations allow for frank discussion that would prevent bad actors from learning about vulnerabilities. DHS would also be able to grant security clearances when appropriate and provide more detailed threat information to states.”

[Also known as: “we can intercede in the election process and determine its outcome without any need to pretend we’re being transparent; only people we approve will know the details of how we run elections; secrecy works.”]

“The Obama administration has proposed international cyber rules for peacetime that would expressly note that countries shouldn’t conduct online activity targeting critical [US] infrastructure, which will now also include election systems.”

[Also known as: “in case there is any doubt, elections systems in America will be property of the federal Executive Branch.”]

This is a coup.

This is equivalent to declaring a national state of emergency, including martial law: the DHS, if it deemed it necessary, could utilize armed agents to enforce the new directive and take over states’ offices that resist.

Good point. Even if this made the headlines, most Americans wouldn’t comprehend the significance (or just don’t care). This gives the feds a license to interfere with election results…………while they continue to hypocritically delegitimise elections abroad.

“…they were jamming us up for something big in the last days of the Obama regime. With this preposterous fake news/Russian hacking psy op.”

Good call. Thanks for sharing that info. It seems there have been a series of mini-coups steadily eroding the little that remains of American democracy. This time between presidents is always fraught with peril. Lame duck executives can do a lot of damage with little or no downside to themselves.

@Afrofem
‘This time between presidents is always fraught with peril.’
I don’t follow these transitions too closely, but this seems unparalleled. I’ve never seen the outgoing prez try to hobble the incoming like this. Dubya didn’t even do it when transitioning to Obama. This that Obama’s doing is disgraceful.

I just read that Trump’s son-in-law got into Harvard due to his daddy’s cash, $2.5 million. The book this information comes from is called “The Price of Admission” by Daniel Golden. resw, nomad and other Trump lovers, say it ain’t so? Kiwi might want to expectorate on this “scandal” as well, given the fact that he fancies himself a gatekeeper to such hallowed educational institutions.

Another aspect of 2016 that distinguished it was the spate of suspicious mass shootings, with conflicting eyewitness reports and which happen to help advance a political agenda. If they were not false flags they were politically convenient. Allow me to include also the mass shooting that happened in San Bernardino, California,. Remember how they wanted to use that to demand back door entry to cell phones. There was Orlando where the primary witness was black, possibly a crisis actor. There were a couple of mass shootings or assaults on police where the perpetrators were black. One seemingly a part of the black truth community. Seems convenient for adding kindling to simmering racial tensions.

and targeting that community as dangerous because of it. The overall theme of 2016 is shutting down dissident voices. Associating them with terrorism here earlier in the year. Culminating in the fake news operation at the end of the year.

@gro jo
“I just read that Trump’s son-in-law got into Harvard due to his daddy’s cash, $2.5 million. The book this information comes from is called “The Price of Admission” by Daniel Golden.”

No, that’s not the part I was talking about. No I haven’t read the book. Not a surprising thing, though. These are generational elites we’re dealing with.

This is the part that needs to be laid to rest. The myth that you and others here subscribe to. The Trump non fan club. Give it a rest.
” resw, nomad and other Trump lovers,”
It has no basis in anything I have said or that I have read from resw, fan or whoever else you might be referring to as “other Trump lovers”. I only heard one regular on this forum admitting to liking Trump. And no one sought to smear him for it.

Obama seems desperate to ignite conflict with Russia in his last days. RT again. Because MSM is not going to report it. They’ll have us diverted by the latest slander against Trump. Meanwhile Obama hopes threat of war with Russia will hide the crumbling of the authority of the three pillars of social control, MSM, the political establishment and intel agencies.
(https://youtu.be/9buokAcMc8o?t=7m35s)

Speaking of fake news distributors, The Washington Post has a nasty habit of publishing fake news and then retracting it a few days later after the damage has been done:

Washington Post: “Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.”

hoisted with their own petard. such a fitting term for MSM in the age of Obama. A fake progressive. A fake African American. With a fake black family. Faking efforts at peace while starting wars. Faking the assassination of Bin Laden. Faking healthcare reform. Fake, fake, fake. Trying to orchestrate fake news to damage the incoming administration. Faking a war against ISIS. What an appropriate characterization of the age of Obama. Barack Obama. The fake president.

“Non-Fan of Trump”
I still have no idea what that means. Some kind of fake label, I guess. Indicating my lack of disdain for Trump. Don’t see what the big deal is. You’ve had Trump in blackface for eight years now. It didn’t seem to upset you then. Why should it upset you now? Ask me who do I disdain more? Obama or Trump? Go ahead. Ask me? Trump or Clinton. Go ahead, ask me. The enemy pretending to be your friend can do much more harm than the enemy you perceive as your enemy.

‘yo enemy cant do you no harm
Cause you know where he’s coming from.

You’ve already had protofascism for eight years. Why wait til now to get upset?

LOL. How dare nomad talk about CNN’s lies! Using abagond’s logic, not talking about Trump’s lies means nomad is “letting his lies sail right on by” and it makes him a de facto Trump supporter. Just like abagond once said that not voting means you’re a de facto Republican voter.

excerpt:“CNN first published an article citing without including information ostensively ruinous to President-elect Donald Trump’s political career — but BuzzFeed took that ball and ran — publishing documents believed to have originated from an unnamed British intelligence officer and admittedly unsubstantiated and unverified.

Careless reporting by the mainstream press, in other words, has reached critical mass — and known publishers of Fake News are now calling each other to task for egregiously vapid journalism.”

This is like you going on or implying that your presidential vote counts because …… it’s the common conventional belief IN THE PROCESS despite the overwhelming (in your face!) evidence that elections (and many other things) in present day Amerika are rigged by the controllers beyond most people’s willingness to accept or recognize.

“So how is what CNN reported about the British spy’s dossier “fake news” but the Pizzagate stuff is not?”
each story is evaluated on its own merits. pizzagate has ample evidence. don’t know why its considered fake news [yes I do]. even by RT. calling it ‘stuff’ and ‘nonsense’ and ‘garbage’ is not going to make it go away. the citizen journalists are on it, even as MSM tries to cover it up.

Excuse me for linking Alex Jones. But he explains the watershed nature of the event very well. Just watch the first five minutes or so. Regardless of what you think about Jones or his politics, he’s spot on here.(https://youtu.be/dcripWKX67U)

Not politically simpatico, maybe. But I also thought Yvette Carnell had a good perspective on the Trump slap down.
(https://youtu.be/4mnR7k7pVY8)

I didn’t see the event. Did he really rip the intel agencies? Donald Trump is a brave brave man.

it’s a bit irritating to compose a perfectly legitimate comment only to have. I don’t know what abagond is talking about. The comment was basically an introduction to the AJ video reviewing the descent of MSM into fake news propaganda in the wake of 911; mentioning the fiascos of WMD in Iraq and the fake war on ISIS and the recent Clinton polling debacle. Ohhhh!!!! I did call the latest attempt to smear Trump by a ‘p’ word!!! And for that he deleted the entire comment. What a petty move.

He’s petty and super quick to delete comments when he disagrees with your argument. But he allows his colleagues, his master and others who attack people with whom he disagrees to repeatedly break the comment policy for months or longer.

So, yeah, and the other thing about the phenomenal Trump slap down of the Intel community and its handmaiden the MSM is it demonstrates that Trump is, not only not part of the secret society insiders, he is not under influence of the CIA as has been every other president since a former head of the CIA, Bush1 held the office.. Clinton, Bush2, Obama. All CIA presidents.

“The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.”

Oh yeah. Another point from my deleted comment. Trump made the accusation heard around the world. “CNN is fake news!” The person about to hold the highest office in the world has declared CNN and by extension MSM fake news. I’ve been saying that here. But Trump is saying it on a much, much bigger stage. MSM has tried to dam it’s competitors, RT and alt news, as fake news. An accusation that Trump has hurled back at them. Hoisted! Hoisted I say! Hoisted with its own petard. Globally, thanks to Trump.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard
‘A petard is a small bomb used for blowing up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. It is of French origin and dates back to the 16th century.’
Trying to blow up Trumps gate, the bomb exploded in their face. Blown up by their own petard.

I didn’t see the event. Did he really rip the intel agencies? Donald Trump is a brave brave man.

Remember what happened to the last president that defied the Military Intelligence Complex? Back in 1963? The MIC won that dispute and has held every US president hostage to it ever since.

These people are desperate and capable of anything. That’s why it is suspiciously strange to have the general in charge of presidential security scheduled to be removed the day of Trump’s inauguration. What does that mean? Stand down? Like with JFK?